Secretary of State for Northern Ireland speech at the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce

Speech by Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be with you all today.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

I would like to extend my thanks to John McGrane and Paul Lynam for your very kind invitation and sharing my congratulations to Marie Doyle on her recent appointment as President of this wonderful organisation.

Now, many people in Britain might assume that the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce has a long and distinguished history. It is certainly distinguished but it's not very long, having been founded only in 2011. But it feels to me and I'm sure to you much older, such is the strength of the ties that bind our two countries together.

Two countries that share so much… in terms of history, culture, ideas, politics and friendships.

And it is a story that runs like a thread through these islands and through the lives of so many of our families, including my own: on my side, it was an Ulster Scot from Fermanagh who took that journey that millions made across the Atlantic to Ohio from where my mother came and, on my wife's side, Irish Catholics from  Mayo and Kilkenny and Cork, her grandfather was born in Monkstown.

And talking of families, you may be aware that I come from a family best known for politics. What you may be less aware of is that two of my great grandfathers were Victorian entrepreneurs.

One – Peter Eadie – designed and made ring travellers for the textile industry working out of the upstairs of a terraced house in Galashiels, in Scotland.

The other - John Benn - was very good at drawing and decided to found a furniture trade magazine which, with great prescience - given the posts that his son, grandson and great grandson - that's me - all went on to hold, he decided to call it “ The Cabinet Maker.“ You couldn't make it up.

Both of those grandfathers entered politics as elected councillors as they put their business minds, industriousness and civic virtues at the service of the public.

So, if I may say so, it is in that spirit of innovation and constructive endeavour that I address you today.

Now the history of these islands has not always been benign. Over the centuries there have been terrible wrongs, great violence, revolution, bitterness but in recent years – reconciliation and progress in ways that would have seemed impossible in the past.

It was a great pleasure last night to see the play Agreement at the Gate Theatre, which so powerfully depicts the events leading up to that miraculous Good Friday in 1998. That agreement eventually resulted in something - I must be frank - I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I grew up watching reporting of the Troubles on the television, reading about it in the papers, and to witness a unionist and a nationalist sitting side by side in government together - that truly was the impossible made possible. And today Northern Ireland is a very different place. 

Why? 

Because of the courageous political leadership shown in the play last night and many others showed.

We must never lose sight of how far we have come across these shared islands since then. I want to say very clearly and directly: The Government's commitment to the Good Friday Agreement – in letter and in spirit - is absolute. And that our support for the European Convention on Human Rights, which underpins the Agreement, and to the rule of law is unwavering.

My priority as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – above all else – is to support political stability and economic growth. 

And critical to that stability and critical to that growth in Northern Ireland is a healthy and constructive relationship between the Irish and UK governments.

And from day one, this new Government has been absolutely determined to seize the opportunity to restore trust, friendship and collaboration between our two countries. And as Paul just set out, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have made their joint commitment to this reset,  which will be underpinned by annual summits, in addition to the existing Strand 3 institutions.

You've heard about the visits the British ministers have made and colleagues from here over to Westminster, and all of those are practical expressions of that commitment to a new and better relationship. 

And talking of new relationships, the restoration of the Executive and Assembly in February was a hugely important moment for Northern Ireland - after too many years in which devolved government was not functioning. And it is vital that we now do all we can to ensure that this stability endures.

Stable and devolved government and political representation at Stormont matters above all for the people of Northern Ireland  - they need a government and an Assembly that work for them.

But it also matters enormously for businesses right across Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. What do businesses and potential investors say they want? Stability. Political stability. 

I am really impressed by the partnership that Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly have forged and the Executive now has a Programme for Government and a Fiscal Sustainability Plan.

And Northern Ireland has a great opportunity to make the most of its unique access to both the British and the European markets to help the economy to grow and to create jobs.

And that is what you do as the British Irish Chamber in promoting trade, prosperity and progress across these islands.

Now we are still having to manage the consequences of the UK's decision to leave the European Union, in a way that does not unnecessarily inhibit trade and commerce across the Irish Sea. That is why this Government is absolutely committed to fully implementing the Windsor Framework, pragmatically and in good faith.

It is not without its challenges - I think that is probably the understatement of the year – but it is necessary. And there is a much bigger prize in sight.

The Government is committed to improving the UK's trading relationship with the EU, including through the negotiation of a sanitary and phyto-sanitary agreement which would have the potential to dramatically smooth the movement of food, animals and plants across the Irish Sea.

One of the joys of my job is that everywhere I go in Northern Ireland I see talent, ingenuity and enterprise.

I see world class businesses operating in the life sciences, high-tech engineering, making composite aircraft wings and building the buses of the future - electric and hydrogen - services and film and television, education.

I am really struck that all these firms have seen something in Northern Ireland and its people.

And my message to investors is simply this.

Come, look, see, believe, invest in Northern Ireland.

Just look at the opportunities for the UK and Irish Governments to work collaboratively on areas and projects to help improve growth in Northern Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland including in its border regions.

Areas which are summed up by the four pillars which will form the basis of the annual leaders' summits.

We need this collaboration not only because it is in our mutual economic interest, but because in these very uncertain times, we face shared challenges which our shared values and our shared commitment to democracy and the rule of law, will help us to face up to.

What do we need to do?

We need to ensure stability in an unstable world.

We need to build economic growth.

We need to make sure we have the infrastructure to enable that growth and attract that investment.

We have got to invest in skills. 

We've got to make the transition to net zero - what a fantastic opportunity for businesses if you just think about changing the way we heat our homes. There are a lot of heat pumps that will have to be built and installed, and we together on these islands should be making them.

Building new energy infrastructure which will be required to power those heat pumps and the electric buses, cooperating on energy resilience - not least given the huge potential across these islands for more wind power - and the investment in Northern Ireland from GB Energy, the UK's new publicly owned, clean energy company, which in turn will support the Shared Electricity Market.

At the same time, we only have to look around us to see the risks from conflict, climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is not a like-to-have, it is the very stuff on which human existence is based.  

If you pause for a moment and look around you, every single thing we see is a gift from what is on the surface of the earth and beneath it. The genius of the human mind is that we have taken those gifts and look at what we have built. Look at what we have created, look at what we have fashioned.  

And given the increasingly uncertain geopolitics of the world, it also makes sense for the UK and Ireland to collaborate on confronting the threats we face, whether in relation to cyber security, terrorism, organised crime or the threat from Russia and other states.

And in doing all of this, the sense I get from the vast majority of people is they would like us to move forward and to try and build a better future that we can jointly embrace.

So let us be bold, let us get on with it and let us take inspiration from those who 26 years ago truly made the impossible possible. 

Finally, why do the relationships that I have spoken about matter so much?

They are clearly important economically, but they are also about something else – it's about building alliances so we can deal with the risks and take advantage of the opportunities.

All of these are powerful reasons why we should work together closely.

Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Two proud nations with everything to gain from a close partnership, for as the great W B Yeats reminded us:

“There are no strangers here. Only friends you haven't yet met.”